Women are half the population and they know how to take care of themselves, if they are only given access to health care.

The idea of making access to safe abortions harder and more expensive and more difficult, having to travel across state lines - that puts women is health and lives in jeopardy, which is something I think no one wants.

Women is health needs to be front and center - it often is not, but it needs to be.

The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight and well-being.

Most American diets, even bad ones, provide more than enough calcium for bone health, especially for men.

I fully support a national health care program for the U.S.

One of the most obvious ways dogs can improve our physical and mental health is via daily walks.

The bottom line is that the human body is complex and subtle, and oversimplifying - as common sense sometimes impels us to do - can be hazardous to your health.

Human beings have survived for millennia because most of us make good decisions about our health most of the time.

If we can make the correct diagnosis, the healing can begin. If we can not, both our personal health and our economy are doomed.

The World Health Organization has recognized acupuncture as effective in treating mild to moderate depression.

I have argued for years that we do not have a health care system in America. We have a disease-management system - one that depends on ruinously expensive drugs and surgeries that treat health conditions after they manifest rather than giving our citizens simple diet, lifestyle and therapeutic tools to keep them healthy.

I am not against all forms of high-tech medicine. Drugs and surgeries have a secure place in the treatment of serious health conditions. But modern American medicine treats almost every health condition as if it were an emergency.

The most common objection that I hear to walking as exercise is that it is too easy, that only sweaty, strenuous activity offers real benefits. But there is abundant evidence that regular, brisk walking is associated with better health, including lower blood pressure, better moods and improved cholesterol ratios.

It does kids no favors, and sets them up for a potential lifetime of poor health and social embarrassment, to excuse them from family meals of real food. Everyone benefits from healthy eating, but it is particularly crucial at the beginning of life.

Citizens must pressure the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, the Centers for Disease Control and other relevant governmental agencies to make greening our hospitals and medical centers a top priority so that they themselves do not create even more illness.

We need to accept the seemingly obvious fact that a toxic environment can make people sick and that no amount of medical intervention can protect us. The health care community must become a powerful political lobby for environmental policy and legislation.

As an American, you have a right to good health care that is effective, accessible, and affordable, that serves you from infancy through old age, that allows you to go to practitioners and facilities of your choosing, and that offers a broad range of therapeutic options.

You can not afford to get sick, and you can not depend on the present health care system to keep you well. It is up to you to protect and maintain your body's innate capacity for health and healing by making the right choices in how you live.

Whenever I write about mental health and integrative therapies, I am accused of being prejudiced against pharmaceuticals. So let me be clear - integrative medicine is the judicious application of both conventional and evidence-based natural therapies.